" Anodising successfully combines science with nature to create one of nature's best metal finishes.

It is an electrochemical process that thickens and toughens the naturally occurring protective oxide. The resulting finish, depending on the process, is the second hardest substance known to man, second only to diamond"

" Anodising successfully combines science with nature to create one of nature's best metal finishes.

It is an electrochemical process that thickens and toughens the naturally occurring protective oxide. The resulting finish, depending on the process, is the second hardest substance known to man, second only to diamond"

"Copper" anodized aluminum? I understand the anodizing process leaves a bonded coating of aluminum oxide. Is copper used as a descriptive adjective here, or is there actually copper involved?

"Copper" anodized aluminum? I understand the anodizing process leaves a bonded coating of aluminum oxide. Is copper used as a descriptive adjective here, or is there actually copper involved?

You can add dyes during the anodizing process and get most any color you like, but as I said before, I think it's more likely that the booster is chromate-conversion coated, because that would leave you with a natural golden-coppery color. But I couldn't find any confirmation in the Atlas documents I looked at. I can say for sure they didn't make the stage out of any AlBe or AlLi alloy, though.

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Disclaimer: This post is based on public information only. Any opinions are my own.

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Would somebody explain to me how they have 3 solid rocket strapons on one side of the booster and 2 on the other side.. and not have the launch vehicle go "TILT" during flight?.. I think they're firing all 5 at the same time... I'd assumed a evenly spaced "star" pattern for the strapons, but they don't have'm that way.

Would somebody explain to me how they have 3 solid rocket strapons on one side of the booster and 2 on the other side.. and not have the launch vehicle go "TILT" during flight?.. I think they're firing all 5 at the same time... I'd assumed a evenly spaced "star" pattern for the strapons, but they don't have'm that way.

I thought that - but they could have angled nozzles on the solids to put the thrust direction in such a way whereby it all cancels out, and/or use the RD180 to compensate.

If you were to roll 180 degrees, you could use the thrust of the SRB's to pitch over

Would somebody explain to me how they have 3 solid rocket strapons on one side of the booster and 2 on the other side.. and not have the launch vehicle go "TILT" during flight?.. I think they're firing all 5 at the same time... I'd assumed a evenly spaced "star" pattern for the strapons, but they don't have'm that way.

It's because every booster's thrust vector is aligned to go through the center of mass of the vehicle. That way no rolling torque is induced, only sideways translation at worst (if one of the boosters under/overperforms or something, inducing translation, which can probably be perfectly well compensated for by the main engine gibals). A similar situation is present with the space shuttle, once the SRBs jettison, the 3 SSMEs need to gimbal to adjust the thrust through the new center of mass.

Good cut-away image, Tesheiner. That puts the spacecraft size into perspective.

Still, it seems to me that the thrust vectors from two boosters would add up to be different than three boosters and the thrust would be uneven. But, heck, I'm just a geologist and they know what they're doing, so I won't fret about it.

I saw Alan Stern on NBC news this morning, in an interview about NH. Just before the nuclear protesters...

The thrust vectors do add up differently, but as long as they go through the center of mass, no torque is exerted.

Seems like the weather report is steadily becoming less and less favorable. Currently the conditions are "mostly cloudy" (degraded from "partly cloudy") and the wind is picking up, currently at 15 km/h.

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